Korznikov cites calculations that at a speed of more than 0.1 C, the spacecraft will not have time to change the flight path and avoid a collision. He believes that at sub-light speeds the spacecraft will collapse before reaching its target. In his opinion, interstellar travel is possible only at significantly lower speeds (up to 0.01 C). From 1950-60 in the USA a spacecraft with a nuclear pulse rocket engine was being developed for research interplanetary space"Orion".
Interstellar flight is travel between stars by manned vehicles or automatic stations. According to NASA Ames Research Center director Simon P. Warden, a deep space engine design could be developed within 15 to 20 years.
Let the flight there and the flight back consist of three phases: uniformly accelerated acceleration, flight with constant speed and uniformly accelerated braking. Let the spacecraft move half the way with unit acceleration, and let it slow down the second half with the same acceleration (). The ship then turns around and repeats the acceleration and deceleration stages.
Not all types of engines are suitable for interstellar flight. Calculations show that using the space system considered in this work, it is possible to reach the star Alpha Centauri... in about 10 years." As one of the options for solving the problem, it is proposed to use elementary particles moving at light or near-light speed as the working substance of a rocket.
What is the speed of modern spacecraft?
Exhaust particle speed is from 15 to 35 kilometers per second. Therefore, ideas arose to supply interstellar ships with energy from an external source. On this moment this project is not feasible: the engine must have an exhaust speed of 0.073 s (specific impulse 2 million seconds), while its thrust must reach 1570 N (that is, 350 pounds).
The collision with interstellar dust will occur at near-light speeds and the physical impact will resemble micro-explosions. Science fiction works often mention methods of interstellar travel based on movement faster speed light in a vacuum. The largest crew consisted of 8 astronauts (including 1 woman), who launched on October 30, 1985 on the Challenger reusable spacecraft.
The distance to the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) is about 4,243 light years, that is, about 268 thousand times the distance from Earth to the Sun. Spaceship flights occupy a significant place in science fiction.
In this situation, the flight time in the earth's reference frame will be approximately 12 years, while according to the clock on the ship, 7.3 years will pass. Suitability various types engines for interstellar flights in particular was considered at a meeting of the British Interplanetary Society in 1973 by Dr. Tony Martin.
In the course of the work, projects were proposed for large and small starships (“generation ships”) capable of reaching the star Alpha Centauri in 1800 and 130 years, respectively. In 1971, in a report by G. Marx at a symposium in Byurakan, it was proposed to use X-ray lasers for interstellar flights. In 1985, R. Forward proposed the design of an interstellar probe accelerated by microwave energy.
Space speed limit
The main component of the mass of modern rockets is the mass of fuel required by the rocket for acceleration. If we can somehow use the environment surrounding the rocket as a working fluid and fuel, we can significantly reduce the mass of the rocket and thereby achieve high speeds.
In the 1960s, Bussard proposed the design of an interstellar direct-flow jet engine(MPRD). The interstellar medium consists mainly of hydrogen. In 1994, Geoffrey Landis proposed a project for an interstellar ion probe that would receive energy from laser beam at the station.
The rocket ship of the Daedalus project turned out to be so huge that it would have to be built in outer space. One of the disadvantages of interstellar ships is the need to carry a power grid with them, which increases mass and consequently reduces speed. So an electric rocket engine has a characteristic speed of 100 km/s, which is too slow to fly to distant stars in an acceptable time.
Illustration copyright Thinkstock
The current speed record in space has stood for 46 years. The correspondent wondered when he would be beaten.
We humans are obsessed with speed. So, only in the last few months it became known that students in Germany set a speed record for an electric car, and the US Air Force plans to improve hypersonic aircraft so that they reach speeds five times the speed of sound, i.e. over 6100 km/h.
Such planes will not have a crew, but not because people cannot move at such high speeds. In fact, people have already moved at speeds that are several times faster than the speed of sound.
However, is there a limit beyond which our rapidly rushing bodies will no longer be able to withstand the overload?
The current speed record is shared equally by three astronauts who participated in the Apollo 10 space mission - Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan.
In 1969, when astronauts circled the Moon and returned back, the capsule they were in reached a speed that on Earth would be 39.897 km/h.
“I think that a hundred years ago we could hardly imagine that a person could move in space at a speed of almost 40 thousand kilometers per hour,” says Jim Bray of the aerospace concern Lockheed Martin.
Bray is the director of the habitable module project for the Orion spacecraft, which is being developed by the US Space Agency NASA.
According to the developers, the Orion spacecraft - multi-purpose and partially reusable - should launch astronauts into low Earth orbit. It is very possible that with its help it will be possible to break the speed record set for a person 46 years ago.
The new super-heavy rocket, part of the Space Launch System, is scheduled to make its first manned flight in 2021. This will be a flyby of an asteroid located in lunar orbit.
The average person can withstand about five Gs of force before passing out.
Then months-long expeditions to Mars should follow. Now, according to the designers, the usual maximum speed of Orion should be approximately 32 thousand km/h. However, the speed achieved by Apollo 10 can be surpassed even if the basic configuration of the Orion spacecraft is maintained.
"Orion is designed to fly to a variety of targets throughout its lifespan," says Bray. "It could be much faster than what we're currently planning."
But even Orion will not represent the peak of human speed potential. “There is essentially no limit to the speed at which we can travel other than the speed of light,” says Bray.
The speed of light is one billion km/hour. Is there any hope that we will be able to bridge the gap between 40 thousand km/h and these values?
Surprisingly, speed as a vector quantity indicating the speed of movement and the direction of movement is not a problem for people in a physical sense, as long as it is relatively constant and directed in one direction.
Consequently, people - theoretically - can move in space only slightly slower than the "speed limit of the universe", i.e. speed of light.
Illustration copyright NASA Image caption How will a person feel in a ship flying at near-light speed?But even if we overcome the significant technological hurdles associated with high-speed spacecraft, our fragile, mostly water bodies will face new dangers associated with the effects of high speed.
Only imaginary dangers may arise if humans are able to travel faster than the speed of light through exploitation of loopholes in modern physics or through breakthrough discoveries.
How to withstand overloads
However, if we intend to travel at speeds over 40 thousand km/h, we will have to reach it and then slow down, slowly and with patience.
Rapid acceleration and equally rapid deceleration pose a mortal danger to the human body. This is evidenced by the severity of injuries resulting from car accidents, in which the speed drops from several tens of kilometers per hour to zero.
What is the reason for this? In that property of the Universe, which is called inertia or ability physical body, having mass, resist changes in its state of rest or motion in the absence or compensation of external influences.
This idea is formulated in Newton's first law, which states: "Every body continues to be maintained in its state of rest or uniform and rectilinear motion until and unless it is compelled by applied forces to change that state."
We humans are able to endure enormous overloads without serious injury, although only for a few moments.
“Staying at rest and moving at a constant speed is normal for the human body,” explains Bray. “We should rather be concerned about the state of a person at the moment of acceleration.”
About a century ago, the development of rugged airplanes that could maneuver at speed led pilots to report strange symptoms caused by changes in speed and direction of flight. These symptoms included temporary loss of vision and a feeling of either heaviness or weightlessness.
The reason is g-forces, measured in units of G, which is the ratio of linear acceleration to the acceleration of gravity on the surface of the Earth under the influence of attraction or gravity. These units reflect the effect of gravity acceleration on the mass of, for example, a human body.
An overload of 1 G is equal to the weight of a body that is in the gravitational field of the Earth and is attracted to the center of the planet at a speed of 9.8 m/sec (at sea level).
G-forces experienced vertically from head to toe or vice versa are truly bad news for pilots and passengers.
At negative overloads, i.e. slowing down, blood rushes from the toes to the head, a feeling of oversaturation arises, as when doing a handstand.
Illustration copyright SPL Image caption In order to understand how many Gs astronauts can withstand, they are trained in a centrifuge"Red veil" (the feeling a person experiences when blood rushes to the head) occurs when the blood-swollen, translucent lower eyelids rise and cover the pupils of the eyes.
And, conversely, during acceleration or positive g-forces, blood flows from the head to the feet, the eyes and brain begin to lack oxygen as blood accumulates in the lower extremities.
At first, vision becomes foggy, i.e. loss of color vision occurs and what is called a “gray veil” rolls in, then complete loss of vision or “black veil” occurs, but the person remains conscious.
Excessive overload leads to complete loss of consciousness. This condition is called overload syncope. Many pilots died because a “black veil” fell over their eyes and they crashed.
The average person can withstand about five Gs of force before losing consciousness.
Pilots, wearing special anti-g suits and trained to tense and relax their torso muscles in a special way to keep the blood flowing from the head, are able to control the plane at about nine Gs.
Upon reaching a stable cruising speed of 26,000 km/h in orbit, astronauts experience speed no more than passengers on commercial flights
“For short periods of time, the human body can withstand much greater g-forces than nine Gs,” says Jeff Swiatek, executive director of the Aerospace Medical Association, based in Alexandria, Va. “But the ability to withstand high g-forces over long periods of time is very few".
We humans are able to endure enormous overloads without serious injury, although only for a few moments.
The short-term endurance record was set by US Air Force Captain Eli Beeding Jr. at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico. In 1958, when braking on a special sled with a rocket engine, after accelerating to 55 km/h in 0.1 second, he experienced an overload of 82.3 G.
This result was recorded by an accelerometer attached to his chest. Beeding also suffered a “black cloud” over his eyes, but he escaped with only bruises during this remarkable display of human endurance. True, after the race he spent three days in the hospital.
And now into space
Astronauts, depending on the means of transportation, also experienced fairly high overloads - from three to five G - during takeoffs and when returning to the dense layers of the atmosphere, respectively.
These overloads are tolerated relatively easily, thanks to the clever idea of strapping space travelers into seats in a prone position facing the direction of flight.
Once they reach a stable cruising speed of 26,000 km/h in orbit, astronauts feel no more speed than passengers on commercial flights.
If overloads do not pose a problem for long expeditions on the Orion spacecraft, then with small space rocks - micrometeorites - everything is more complicated.
Illustration copyright NASA Image caption To protect against micrometeorites, Orion will need some kind of space armorThese particles, the size of a grain of rice, can reach impressive yet destructive speeds of up to 300 thousand km/h. To ensure the integrity of the ship and the safety of its crew, Orion is equipped with an external protective layer, the thickness of which varies from 18 to 30 cm.
In addition, additional shielding shields are provided, and ingenious placement of equipment inside the ship is also used.
"In order not to lose flight systems that are vital for everything spaceship", we must accurately calculate the angles of approach of micrometeorites," says Jim Bray.
Rest assured: micrometeorites are not the only obstacle to space missions, during which high speeds of human flight in vacuum will play an increasingly important role.
During the expedition to Mars, other practical problems will have to be solved, for example, supplying the crew with food and countering the increased danger of cancer due to exposure to human body cosmic radiation.
Reducing travel time will reduce the severity of such problems, so speed of travel will become increasingly desirable.
Next generation spaceflight
This need for speed will throw new obstacles in the way of space travelers.
NASA's new spacecraft, which threaten to break Apollo 10's speed record, will still rely on time-tested chemical rocket propulsion systems used since the first space flights. But these systems have severe speed limitations due to the release of small amounts of energy per unit of fuel.
The most preferred, although elusive, source of energy for a fast spacecraft is antimatter, the counterpart and antipode of ordinary matter
Therefore, in order to significantly increase the speed of flight for people going to Mars and beyond, scientists recognize that completely new approaches are needed.
"The systems we have today are quite capable of getting us there," says Bray, "but we would all like to witness a revolution in engines."
Eric Davis, a leading research physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Austin, Texas, and a member of NASA's Breakthrough Physics in Propulsion Program, a six-year research project that ended in 2002, has identified three of the most promising tools, from the perspective of traditional physics, that can to help humanity achieve speeds reasonably sufficient for interplanetary travel.
In short, we are talking about the phenomena of energy release during the splitting of matter, thermonuclear fusion and annihilation of antimatter.
The first method involves fission of atoms and is used in commercial nuclear reactors.
The second, thermonuclear fusion, is the creation of heavier atoms from simple atoms - this kind of reaction powers the Sun. This is a technology that fascinates, but is difficult to grasp; it's "always another 50 years away" - and that's how it always will be, as the industry's old motto goes.
"This is quite Hi-tech, says Davis, “but they are based on traditional physics and have been firmly established since the dawn of the Atomic Age.” According to optimistic estimates, propulsion systems based on the concepts of atomic fission and nuclear fusion, in theory, can accelerate a ship to 10% the speed of light, i.e. up to a very respectable 100 million km/h.
Illustration copyright US Air Force Image caption Flying at supersonic speed is no longer a problem for humans. Another thing is the speed of light, or at least close to it...The most preferred, although difficult to achieve, source of energy for a fast spacecraft is antimatter, the counterpart and antipode of ordinary matter.
When two types of matter come into contact, they destroy each other, resulting in the release of pure energy.
Technologies that make it possible to produce and store – so far extremely insignificant – amounts of antimatter exist today.
At the same time, the production of antimatter in useful quantities will require new special capabilities of the next generation, and engineering will have to enter a competitive race to create an appropriate spacecraft.
But, as Davis says, a lot great ideas is already being worked out on the drawing boards.
Spacecraft powered by antimatter energy would be able to accelerate for months or even years and reach greater percentages of the speed of light.
At the same time, overloads on board will remain acceptable for the ship's inhabitants.
At the same time, such fantastic new speeds will be fraught with other dangers for the human body.
Energy city
At speeds of several hundred million kilometers per hour, any speck of dust in space, from dispersed hydrogen atoms to micrometeorites, inevitably becomes a high-energy bullet capable of piercing the hull of a ship.
"When you move at very high speeds, that means that the particles coming towards you are moving at the same speeds," says Arthur Edelstein.
Together with his late father, William Edelstein, a professor of radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, he worked on scientific work, which looked at the effects of exposure (to people and technology) to cosmic hydrogen atoms during ultrafast space travel in space.
The hydrogen will begin to decompose into subatomic particles, which will penetrate into the ship and expose both crew and equipment to radiation.
The Alcubierre engine will propel you like a surfer riding a wave Eric Davis, Research Physicist
At 95% of the speed of light, exposure to such radiation would mean almost instant death.
The spaceship will heat up to melting temperatures that no imaginable material can resist, and the water contained in the crew members' bodies will immediately boil.
“These are all extremely vexing problems,” Edelstein observes with grim humor.
He and his father roughly calculated that to create a hypothetical magnetic shielding system that could protect the ship and its occupants from deadly hydrogen rain, the starship could travel at a speed not exceeding half the speed of light. Then the people on board have a chance to survive.
Mark Millis, a translational physicist, and former manager NASA's breakthrough motion physics program warns that this potential speed limit for space travel remains a problem for the distant future.
"Based physical knowledge accumulated to date, we can say that it will be extremely difficult to reach speeds above 10% of the speed of light, says Millis. “We are not in any danger yet.” A simple analogy: why worry about drowning if we haven’t even entered the water yet.”
Faster than light?
If we assume that we have, so to speak, learned to swim, will we then be able to master gliding through cosmic time - to develop this analogy further - and fly at superluminal speeds?
The hypothesis of an innate ability to survive in a superluminal environment, although dubious, is not without certain glimpses of educated enlightenment in the pitch darkness.
One such intriguing way to travel is based on technology, similar topics, which are used in the "warp drive" or "warp drive" from the TV series "Star Trek".
The principle of operation of this power plant, also known as the “Alcubierre engine” * (named after the Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre), is that it allows the ship to compress normal space-time in front of it, as described by Albert Einstein, and expand it behind myself.
Illustration copyright NASA Image caption The current speed record is held by three Apollo 10 astronauts - Tom Stafford, John Young and Eugene Cernan.Essentially, the ship moves in a certain volume of space-time, a kind of “curvature bubble” that moves faster than the speed of light.
Thus, the ship remains motionless in normal space-time in this "bubble", without being subject to deformation and avoiding violations of the universal limit of the speed of light.
“Instead of floating through the water of normal spacetime,” says Davis, “the Alcubierre drive will carry you like a surfer riding a surfboard along the crest of a wave.”
There is also a certain catch here. To implement this idea, an exotic form of matter is needed that has negative mass to compress and expand space-time.
“Physics doesn’t say anything against negative mass,” says Davis, “but there are no examples of it, and we’ve never seen it in nature.”
There is another catch. In a paper published in 2012, researchers from the University of Sydney suggested that the "warp bubble" would accumulate high-energy cosmic particles as it inevitably began to interact with the contents of the Universe.
Some particles will penetrate inside the bubble itself and pump the ship with radiation.
Trapped at sub-light speeds?
Are we really doomed to be stuck at sub-light speeds due to our delicate biology?!
This is not so much about setting a new world (galactic?) speed record for humans, but about the prospect of transforming humanity into an interstellar society.
At half the speed of light - and this is the limit that, according to Edelstein's research, our body can withstand - a round trip to the nearest star would take more than 16 years.
(Time dilation effects, which would cause the spaceship crew to experience less time in their coordinate system than for the people remaining on Earth in their coordinate system, would not have dramatic consequences at half the speed of light.)
Mark Millis is hopeful. Considering that humanity has invented G-suits and micrometeor protection that allow humans to travel safely in the great blue and star-studded black of space, he is confident that we can find ways to survive whatever speed limits we reach in the future.
“The same technologies that can help us achieve incredible new travel speeds,” Millis reflects, “will provide us with new, as yet unknown capabilities for protecting crews.”
Translator's Notes:
*Miguel Alcubierre came up with the idea for his bubble in 1994. And in 1995, Russian theoretical physicist Sergei Krasnikov proposed the concept of a device for space travel faster than the speed of light. The idea was called the “Krasnikov pipe”.
This is an artificial curvature of space-time according to the principle of a so-called wormhole. Hypothetically, the ship would move in a straight line from Earth to a given star through curved space-time, passing through other dimensions.
According to Krasnikov's theory, the space traveler will return back at the same time when he set off.
In the struggle to overcome the “condensation threshold,” aerodynamics scientists had to abandon the use of an expanding nozzle. Supersonic wind tunnels of a fundamentally new type were created. At the entrance to such a pipe a high-pressure cylinder is placed, which is separated from it by a thin plate - a diaphragm. At the outlet, the pipe is connected to a vacuum chamber, as a result of which a high vacuum is created in the pipe.
If the diaphragm is broken, for example by a sharp increase in pressure in the cylinder, the gas flow will rush through the pipe into the rarefied space of the vacuum chamber, preceded by a powerful shock wave. Therefore, these installations are called shock wind tunnels.
As with a balloon-type tube, the impact time of wind tunnels is very short, amounting to only a few thousandths of a second. To carry out the necessary measurements for such a short time it is necessary to use complex high-speed electronic devices.
The shock wave moves in the pipe at very high speed and without a special nozzle. In wind tunnels created abroad, it was possible to obtain air flow speeds of up to 5,200 meters per second at a temperature of the flow itself of 20,000 degrees. With such high temperatures The speed of sound in gas also increases, and much more. Therefore, despite the high speed of the air flow, its excess over the speed of sound turns out to be insignificant. The gas moves at a high absolute speed and at a low speed relative to sound.
To reproduce high supersonic flight speeds, it was necessary to either further increase the speed of the air flow, or reduce the speed of sound in it, that is, reduce the air temperature. And then aerodynamicists again remembered the expanding nozzle: after all, with its help you can do both at the same time - it accelerates the gas flow and at the same time cools it. The expanding supersonic nozzle in this case turned out to be the gun from which aerodynamicists killed two birds with one stone. In shock tubes with such a nozzle, it was possible to obtain air flow speeds 16 times higher than the speed of sound.
AT SATELLITE SPEED
You can sharply increase the pressure in the shock tube cylinder and thereby break through the diaphragm different ways. For example, as they do in the USA, where a powerful electric discharge is used.
A high-pressure cylinder is placed in the pipe at the inlet, separated from the rest by a diaphragm. Behind the cylinder there is an expanding nozzle. Before the start of the tests, the pressure in the cylinder increased to 35-140 atmospheres, and in vacuum chamber, at the exit from the pipe, dropped to a millionth of atmospheric pressure. Then a super-powerful discharge of an electric arc was produced in the cylinder with a current of one million! Artificial lightning in a wind tunnel sharply increased the pressure and temperature of the gas in the cylinder, the diaphragm instantly evaporated and the air flow rushed into the vacuum chamber.
Within one tenth of a second, it was possible to reproduce a flight speed of about 52,000 kilometers per hour, or 14.4 kilometers per second! Thus, in laboratories it was possible to overcome both the first and second cosmic velocities.
From that moment on, wind tunnels became a reliable aid not only for aviation, but also for rocketry. They allow you to decide whole line issues of modern and future space navigation. With their help, you can test models of rockets, artificial Earth satellites and spaceships, reproducing the part of their flight that they pass within the planetary atmosphere.
But the speeds achieved should be only at the very beginning of the scale of an imaginary cosmic speedometer. Their development is only the first step towards the creation of a new branch of science - space aerodynamics, which was brought to life by the needs of rapidly developing rocket technology. And there are already significant new successes in the further development of cosmic speeds.
Since during an electric discharge the air is ionized to some extent, you can try to use electromagnetic fields to further accelerate the resulting air plasma. This possibility was realized practically in another small-diameter hydromagnetic shock tube designed in the USA, in which the speed of the shock wave reached 44.7 kilometers per second! So far, spacecraft designers can only dream of such a speed of movement.
There is no doubt that further advances in science and technology will open up greater opportunities for the aerodynamics of the future. Already now, modern physical installations, for example, installations with high-speed plasma jets, are beginning to be used in aerodynamic laboratories. To reproduce the flight of photon rockets in a rarefied interstellar medium and to study the passage of spaceships through clusters of interstellar gas, it will be necessary to use the achievements of nuclear particle acceleration technology.
And, obviously, long before the first spaceships leave the borders, their miniature copies will more than once experience in wind tunnels all the hardships of a long journey to the stars.
P.S. What else are British scientists thinking about: however, cosmic speed happens not only in scientific laboratories. So, let’s say, if you are interested in creating websites in Saratov - http://galsweb.ru/, then here they will create it for you at truly cosmic speed.
11.06.2010 00:10
The American spacecraft Dawn recently installed new record gaining speed - 25.5 thousand km/h, ahead of its main competitor - the Deep Space 1 probe. This achievement was made possible thanks to the ultra-powerful ion engine installed on the device. However, according to experts NASA, this is far from the limit of its capabilities.
The speed of the American spacecraft Dawn reached a record value on June 5 - 25.5 thousand km/h. However, according to scientists, in the near future the ship’s speed will reach 100 thousand km/h.
Thus, thanks to its unique engine, Dawn surpassed its predecessor, the Deep Space 1 probe, an experimental automatic spacecraft launched on October 24, 1998 by a launch vehicle. True, Deep Space 1 still retains the title of the station whose engines lasted the longest. But Dawn can get ahead of its “competitor” in this category as early as August.
The main task of the spacecraft, launched three years ago, is to study the asteroid 4 Vesta, which the device will approach in 2011, and dwarf planet Ceres. Scientists hope to obtain the most accurate data on the shape, size, mass, mineral and elemental composition of these objects located between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars. The total distance to be covered by the Dawn spacecraft is 4 billion 800 million kilometers.
Since there is no air in outer space, having accelerated, the ship continues to move at the same speed. On Earth this is impossible due to slowdown due to friction. The use of ion engines in airless space allowed scientists to make the process of gradually increasing the speed of the Dawn spacecraft as efficient as possible.
The operating principle of the innovative engine is the ionization of gas and its acceleration by an electrostatic field. At the same time, due to the high charge-to-mass ratio, it becomes possible to accelerate the ions to very high speeds. Thus, a very high specific impulse can be achieved in the engine, which can significantly reduce the consumption of the reactive mass of ionized gas (compared to a chemical reaction), but requires large amounts of energy.
Dawn's three engines do not operate constantly, but are turned on briefly at certain points in the flight. To date, they have worked for a total of 620 days and have consumed over 165 kilograms of xenon. Simple calculations show that the speed of the probe increased by about 100 km/h every four days. By the end of Dawn's eight-year mission (although experts do not rule out extending it), the total operating time of the engines will be 2,000 days—almost 5.5 years. Such indicators promise that the speed of the spacecraft will reach 38.6 thousand km/h.
This may seem like a small amount against the background of at least the first cosmic speed with which artificial Earth satellites are launched, but for an interplanetary vehicle without any external accelerators, which does not perform special maneuvers in the gravitational field of planets, this result is truly remarkable.
Presented to the attention of readers fastest rockets in the world throughout the history of creation.
Speed 3.8 km/s
The fastest medium-range ballistic missile with maximum speed 3.8 km per second opens the ranking of the most fast missiles in the world. The R-12U was a modified version of the R-12. The rocket differed from the prototype in the absence of an intermediate bottom in the oxidizer tank and some minor design changes - there are no wind loads in the shaft, which made it possible to lighten the tanks and dry compartments of the rocket and eliminate the need for stabilizers. Since 1976, the R-12 and R-12U missiles began to be removed from service and replaced with Pioneer mobile ground systems. They were withdrawn from service in June 1989, and between May 21, 1990, 149 missiles were destroyed at the Lesnaya base in Belarus.
Speed 5.8 km/s
One of the fastest American launch vehicles with a maximum speed of 5.8 km per second. It is the first developed intercontinental ballistic missile adopted by the United States. Developed as part of the MX-1593 program since 1951. It formed the basis of the US Air Force's nuclear arsenal from 1959-1964, but was then quickly withdrawn from service due to the advent of the more advanced Minuteman missile. It served as the basis for the creation of the Atlas family of space launch vehicles, which have been in operation since 1959 to this day.
Speed 6 km/s
UGM-133 A Trident II- American three-stage ballistic missile, one of the fastest in the world. Its maximum speed is 6 km per second. “Trident-2” has been developed since 1977 in parallel with the lighter “Trident-1”. Adopted into service in 1990. Launch weight - 59 tons. Max. throw weight - 2.8 tons with a launch range of 7800 km. The maximum flight range with a reduced number of warheads is 11,300 km.
Speed 6 km/s
One of the fastest solid-propellant ballistic missiles in the world, in service with Russia. It has a minimum damage radius of 8000 km and an approximate speed of 6 km/s. The rocket has been developed since 1998 by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Engineering, which developed it in 1989-1997. ground-based missile "Topol-M". To date, 24 test launches of the Bulava have been carried out, fifteen of them were considered successful (during the first launch, a mass-sized prototype of the rocket was launched), two (the seventh and eighth) were partially successful. The last test launch of the rocket took place on September 27, 2016.
Speed 6.7 km/s
Minuteman LGM-30 G- one of the fastest land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles in the world. Its speed is 6.7 km per second. The LGM-30G Minuteman III has an estimated flight range of 6,000 kilometers to 10,000 kilometers, depending on the type of warhead. Minuteman 3 has been in US service from 1970 to the present day. It is the only silo-based missile in the United States. The first launch of the rocket took place in February 1961, modifications II and III were launched in 1964 and 1968, respectively. The rocket weighs about 34,473 kilograms and is equipped with three solid propellant engines. It is planned that the missile will be in service until 2020.
Speed 7 km/s
The fastest anti-missile missile in the world, designed to destroy highly maneuverable targets and high-altitude hypersonic missiles. Tests of the 53T6 series of the Amur complex began in 1989. Its speed is 5 km per second. The rocket is a 12-meter pointed cone with no protruding parts. Its body is made of high-strength steel using composite winding. The design of the rocket allows it to withstand heavy overloads. The interceptor launches with 100-fold acceleration and is capable of intercepting targets flying at speeds of up to 7 km per second.
Speed 7.3 km/s
The most powerful and fastest nuclear missile in the world with a speed of 7.3 km per second. It is intended, first of all, to destroy the most fortified command posts, ballistic missile silos and air bases. The nuclear explosives of one missile can destroy a large city, quite most USA. Hit accuracy is about 200-250 meters. The missile is housed in the world's strongest silos. The SS-18 carries 16 platforms, one of which is loaded with decoys. When entering a high orbit, all “Satan” heads go “in a cloud” of false targets and are practically not identified by radars.”
Speed 7.9 km/s
The intercontinental ballistic missile (DF-5A) with a maximum speed of 7.9 km per second opens the top three fastest in the world. The Chinese DF-5 ICBM entered service in 1981. It can carry a huge 5 MT warhead and has a range of over 12,000 km. The DF-5 has a deflection of approximately 1 km, which means that the missile has one purpose - to destroy cities. The warhead's size, deflection and the fact that it only takes an hour to fully prepare for launch all mean that the DF-5 is a punitive weapon, designed to punish any would-be attackers. The 5A version has increased range, improved 300m deflection and the ability to carry multiple warheads.
R-7 Speed 7.9 km/s
R-7- Soviet, the first intercontinental ballistic missile, one of the fastest in the world. Its top speed is 7.9 km per second. The development and production of the first copies of the rocket was carried out in 1956-1957 by the OKB-1 enterprise near Moscow. After successful launches, it was used in 1957 to launch the world's first artificial Earth satellites. Since then, launch vehicles of the R-7 family have been actively used to launch spacecraft for various purposes, and since 1961 these launch vehicles have been widely used in manned spaceflight. Based on the R-7, a whole family of launch vehicles was created. From 1957 to 2000, more than 1,800 launch vehicles based on the R-7 were launched, of which more than 97% were successful.
Speed 7.9 km/s
RT-2PM2 "Topol-M" (15Zh65)- the fastest intercontinental ballistic missile in the world with a maximum speed of 7.9 km per second. Maximum range - 11,000 km. Carries one thermonuclear warhead with a power of 550 kt. The silo-based version was put into service in 2000. The launch method is mortar. The rocket's sustaining solid-propellant engine allows it to gain speed much faster than previous types of rockets of a similar class created in Russia and the Soviet Union. This makes it much more difficult for missile defense systems to intercept it during the active phase of the flight.